


sullen load is full, so slow on the split

by flowers_bloom



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Oneshot, Pre-Canon, Some speculation, Unhealthy Relationships, discord made me do it, jean really can't write healthy stuff huh, kinda flashbacks?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28069524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowers_bloom/pseuds/flowers_bloom
Summary: Ernest Denouement and Jacquelyn Scieszka were in a hotel room on the edge of the world.
Relationships: Jacquelyn Scieszka/Ernest Denouement
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	sullen load is full, so slow on the split

**Author's Note:**

  * For [esotericakit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/esotericakit/gifts).



> Title taken from Skinny Love by Bon Iver.

Ernest Denouement and Jacquelyn Scieszka were in a hotel room on the edge of the world. 

Not truly the edge of the world, sure, but it felt like it. The stars shone brightly, the new moon was out, and Hotel Denouement was mostly silent, save for a few guests throwing a party near the fountain. 

Jacquelyn sat on a green velvet chair, uncomfortably overstuffed, legs kicked up over the armrest. Her red lipstick was a bit smudged, her suit jacket thrown onto the floor, and her heels kicked off. Her arms were stretched up, and she hummed along to the blaring tune on the record player. 

Jacquelyn had come to the hotel lobby a few hours ago, looking as prim as ever. Her blond hair was slicked, with a grey hat and an attached veil placed on her head. Her grey eyes would’ve glittered, if she didn’t look so distracted. She wore a red suit and a white neck-scarf and looked rather put-together, for someone of her caliber. It was an appearance that could be easily replicated, and a number of people could fit her description.

She had gone up to the first Denouement brother she could find in the lobby, either Frank or Ernest, and told them that she had something to give them. If it was Frank, she had information, which was just vague enough to pass as something new. Enemies are nearby, it was, it seemed like that message was swirling around everywhere. Enemies were always right behind you, in front of you, two steps left and one step right. 

She had found Ernest, though, and she didn’t have a gift to give in. She had a breath, a smile, a snide remark, her enemy was three steps in front of her and two steps to the left. She told him that she’d get herself a room, just for the night, and Ernest replied that he would join her after his shift. During, he could convince Frank to pick up shift during the night, like he had done the last month, and the month before, and the month before. Jacquelyn Scieszka was a woman of habit, after all, and if her habit happened to be meeting Ernest Denouement in Room 790 of his own hotel, then so be it. 

Ernest laughed. The wine in these rooms was bad, but strong, strong enough that he was able to smile and laugh laying down on the bed. Jacquelyn set her arms back down, sat up, and walked over to Ernest. 

“Why - Why’re - Are you _laughing_?” She asked, her voice clear. Jacquelyn’s voice was like bells, Ernest noted, nice, but dull. Pretty, but you had to make it so, had to chime them in the right way. 

“Well,” he started, sitting up. His shoes were off, tie undone, his shoes were off and placed near the door, “Well, well, it’s the music!” he decided. “It’s - it’s nonsensical! It's just noise! Jackie, isn’t it hilarious?”

The music blaring out of the record player was something Ernest couldn’t remember buying, though whether that was because of his drunken state or because he genuinely hadn’t bought it, he wasn’t sure. The thing was blaring too fast, too long, they put that thing in an hour ago and it was still running, over and over and over again. 

Record players, Ernest thought, a bit dully, were a bit like the hotel. They would run and run and run and run and run until they were out of things to play, and there would always be more. Lemony Snicket had told him, back when everything was okay, that he had once encountered a girl who played jazz music from a record player. She had long black hair, Ernest could remember, too, large eyes. Smart face. 

Jacquelyn began to laugh, but stopped, abruptly.

“We should turn it off,” she said, now serious, and walked over. She fiddled with the knobs, and slowly, the pic was raised, and the music stopped. She picked up the record, it wobbling in her unsteady hands, and she placed it on top of a wooden dresser. 

“Why’d you do _that?_ ” He asked. 

“I was getting annoyed. Have you got anything classical?” 

She sat next to him on the bed, and he gave out a little huff. “No. Don’t see the fuss about those anyway.”   
  
“They’re lovely.” 

“They have no words. No real substance. They’re messes.” 

“Messes?” Jacquelyn got up off the bed, and began to shuffle across the hotel room. “ _Messes?_ Lemme - Let me tell you, you haven’t been exposed to real art.” 

“No such thing.” 

“Not being exposed to things?” 

“No real art. Every art is real, isn’t it? I mean, you don’t act in anything-” 

“Ernest Metom Denouement, be _very_ careful here.” 

“-Act in anything that isn’t a V.F.D film, or play, and plenty people still see you as - as an artist. As something to admire, isn’t that what art is? Yet, yet, how can it be art if you aren’t making it yourself?” He didn’t mean for it to come out like an outburst, he didn’t, but it did. He was sitting up, now, his face cooling down, trying not to go on. Despite the rumors, Ernest didn’t like yelling. 

Jacquelyn stayed silent. Her slight smile had downturned, now forming a thin, smudged red line at the bottom of her face. Her eyes, like polished steel, seemed to rage. There was a storm in those eyes, a working of waves crashing along the shoreline and lightning bolts hitting innocent ships. Her hands stayed firm, now bundled into fists, and she stood at the foot of the bed. 

Jacquelyn had nearly never gotten yelled at, when she was a child. She was the overachiever, a praise magnet, someone who had always done what people had asked her to. Slip-ups were few. Yet, when she reached adulthood, she found that people wanted less than a few slip-ups. Absolute perfection truly was necessary. It was no use wasting your energy on trying to yell back. 

She only looked. She pressed. She scared and was scared, was frightful and frightened, but she was determined to bury it. Everyone did it, everyone indulged, everyone could pretend like things were okay, and not as complicated as this, and that she wasn’t in a hotel room with an enemy, and drunk with him, and had gotten into whatever this relationship was on her own fragile, fickle accord. 

“We should go onto the balcony,” she said. “Fresh air, and all.” 

Ernest nodded, and followed. 

She unlocked the glass doors, and then shoved them open. It was windy, and her hair flowed along the wind. The sky was a blue-black, and the stars, why, they were lovely. They whispered to each other in their own light-language of red, yellow, and white, they didn’t care whether you liked high art or not, or saw something as something else. If anybody could love you, it was the moon, and the stars, and the great green-blue sea below them, washing away sand from the shore. 

“It is,” Jacquelyn said, voice hollow, “it is very nice out. We should take a walk, sometime.” 

“Yes, yes,” Ernest said. He looked out onto the view. He had looked out many times, sometimes with Jacquelyn, sometimes without, and all of the times, it had never felt so lonely. He wished she would reach for his hand, or she could, at the very least, move a bit closer to him, but she didn’t. 

“We are standing on the precipice of our own extinction,” she said.   
  
“Excuse me, what?” 

“We are standing on the precipice of our own extinction,” she repeated. 

“How - What do you mean?” 

“We won’t be here next year, Ernest. We won’t.” 

“Jackie, if you’re ending this, please don’t be cryptic about it.” 

“Don’t be silly. This will last as long as it can.” 

This shook him. Jacquelyn was one to have sudden predictions, she’d done it many times with varying degrees of success, but this seemed entirely different. She was being unusually vague, disturbingly odd, all things she wasn’t. What was she talking about, with not being here next year? This hotel would stand until evil crumbled, he was sure of it, until Lemony could come out of hiding, until Jacquelyn became, through a series of confusing events and lineages, the Duchess of Winnipeg. 

Did he want this to last, for as long as it could? He had wrestled with the idea before. It would be much easier to shut Jacquelyn out, he figured, to send her away on the basis that she was too noble, too good, a ruiner. It wasn’t fake. But he loved her, he was sure he did, but he loved her the way the shoe loves the foot, or the reflection loves the person, or the book loves the cover. Unnecessary, idealized, some sort of reach. 

Was she, simply, too noble to ever reach? Had he only approached her because Jacquelyn Scieszka was, truly, the V.F.D ideal, a smooth, carefree, intelligent, well-read, wonderfully artistic, noble secret member? 

What about him? He was silent, mostly, a smiling face, a twin, a monster, a murderer, one who called great music a mess, blatantly unaware of the challenges that lay ahead, one who was the higher-ups, and who was relied on to get things done. 

They were chasing after each other’s ideals, never focusing on the complexities, only what they could be, smooth-edged and rounded. 

“I have to go,” said Jacquelyn, turning on her heel. “I can tell. Moon’s high, and things. I’ll sober up in the taxi.” 

“Alright,” he said. He walked back into the room first, holding the door open for her, and she grabbed her jacket and shoes and staggered towards the green-wood door, and out. She blew a kiss, which he pretended to catch, and she seemed to smile. 

He laid back down on the bed. Did he miss her, or simply the idea that she was lying next to him?


End file.
